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Sigma-Aldrich Gains Rights to Agilent's Big Blue Cell Lines, Colonies

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Sigma-Aldrich today said that its BioReliance business has signed an agreement to acquire colonies and cell lines for toxicology testing from Agilent Technologies.

The deal covers colonies required for Agilent's Big Blue transgenic rodent mutation assay, which are in vivo genetic toxicology assays that measure mutation frequency in tissue. BioReliance will now own the Big Blue mutation models and will be the exclusive supplier of testing services based on the model.

Sigma-Aldrich also said that BioReliance is in the process of requalifying the assay to meet new regulatory requirements. It expects the Big Blue testing services to be commercially available in the second half of this year.

Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

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